Virginia’s unaccredited lab picks a new breath alcohol tester Â
Non-accredited laboratory Virginia takes a new breath alcohol tester
Article by Robert Keefer
Copyright (c) 2008 Robert Keefer
23 April 2008 Virginia began a list of the Intox EC / IR II device approved in accordance with the requirements of breath alcohol measurement. Virginia has a contract to buy 220 aircraft Intoximeter signed the same day.
Alka Lohmann is the chief of the Virginia Section unaccredited breath alcohol. A 5 May 2008 meeting of the Scientific Advisory Committee, Mrs. Lohmann gave a status report II EC / IR. She said that the 50 states this tester is used in only four states outside of Virginia: West Virginia, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Tennessee. Mrs. Lohmann do not show why only 10% of states used II EC / IR. She said that the new tester advanced communications capabilities, a form of debugging in the lab and the opportunity offered by a dry gas. Mrs. Lohmann was asked about the types of reports that are requested on the device. She said that the same reports presently available will be available for the new machine. In analytical chemistry, analysis of a substance must be confirmed by an independent and analytical alternatives. . Agreement between the two different analytical methods ensures the reliability of the results
The name EC / IR II implies that the machine is the concentration of alcohol of the subject is measured in two ways: CE electrochemical or fuel cell using IR infrared. This procedure ensures that the device reliability of the results through the use of different tests. This would provide internal confirmation II EC / IR a decisive advantage over the reliability of the devices with a single technology.
Unfortunately Intoximeter was unable to coordinate the different analytical methods. Use due to this error, the device must not have two independent methods to measure the concentration of alcohol. Instead, the EC II / IR to measure only the fuel cell on alcohol and determine blood alcohol. The IR is used only to detect mouth alcohol detector with a passion. The fuel cell component does not have the ability to detect mouth alcohol. The fuel cell simply reports the total concentration of the alcohol by detecting the presence of alcohol in the mouth. In the course of time have to change the fuel cells and sensitivity to be calibrated frequently to maintain their accuracy. Infrared sensors require no calibration weeks. When the electrode microstructure changes it causes drift of the baseline of the sensor. The drift takes the EC Sych with the infrared detector. Calibrate the device every few weeks will be very stressful and time consuming. Some states have resolved this problem by disabling the IR detector entirely. Once the IR detector is disabled, the device does not have the ability to detect mouth alcohol.About the Author
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